Theresa Smith's Blog, page 58
February 21, 2021
Book Review: The Sanatorium by Sarah Pease
High in the Swiss Alps, a luxury hotel opens in what was once a sanatorium, but the new design can’t hide the building’s dark history for long . . . This is the chilling debut from the hottest new talent in crime fiction.
EVERYONE’S IN DANGER. ANYONE COULD BE NEXT.
An imposing, isolated hotel, high up in the Swiss Alps, is the last place Elin Warner wants to be. But she’s taken time off from her job as a detective, so when she receives an invitation out of the blue to celebrate her estranged brother’s recent engagement, she has no choice but to accept.
Arriving in the midst of a threatening storm, Elin immediately feels on edge. Though it’s beautiful, something about the hotel, recently converted from an abandoned sanatorium, makes her nervous – as does her brother, Isaac.
And when they wake the following morning to discover his fiancée Laure has vanished without a trace, Elin’s unease grows. With the storm cutting off access to and from the hotel, the longer Laure stays missing, the more the remaining guests start to panic.
But no-one has realized yet that another woman has gone missing. And she’s the only one who could have warned them just how much danger they’re all in . . .
My Thoughts:This was entirely twisting and chilling, a proper scare read that delivers on what it promises. The setting was the perfect backdrop for a story such as this: secluded and remote, high up in the Swiss Alps during winter, inside a grand and imposing building with a sinister history. Old institutions and sanatoriums always reel me in. There’s something about the history of these places that gives way to unease; vulnerable patients at the mercy of medical experimentation. A history that is not all that far back. This aspect of the story was the most sobering, a nod to the many women who were unjustly institutionalised and subsequently subjected to illegal medical experimentation, the crimes against them hidden and without consequence.
This story twists and turns so much that it almost ties itself up in knots. Elin is a police detective who is taking extended leave. An attack has left her rattled and exposed some undealt with trauma that prevents her from being in the right frame of mind for returning to work. Stormy weather leads to a mass evacuation, but before everyone can leave, an avalanche hits and blocks the remaining people in. No one can get out, no one can get in. Then people start going missing and turning up dead. It’s creepy and frightening and the more Elin delves into what’s going on, the more she keeps getting it wrong. Suspicion jumps from one person to the next, death ultimately ruling each new suspect out. In terms of a whodunit, it was impossible (for me) to guess the who and the why. When all is revealed, I was a bit underwhelmed, to be honest. Everything gets tied up, but it all plays out a little differently to what I was expecting.
The novel has an epilogue that I thought was entirely unnecessary. I honestly had no idea what it was alluding to. Thank goodness for Goodreads and the fact that you can always count on someone to explain obscure endings within reviews. I will confess that I still am at a loss as to why this was left in the story. The person it alludes to was not even a character I remembered the name of. It’s a part of the story I simply read and forgot. I think, coming at the end of such a terrifically chilling and twisting tale, this epilogue falls flat, another twist that adds little value but a lot of bewilderment.
This aside, The Sanatorium is still a novel I’d highly recommend. I haven’t read an actual scary novel for a long while and this was a treat to tingle the senses.
Thanks is extended to Penguin Random House Australia for providing me with a copy of The Sanatorium for review.
About the Author:Sarah Pearse lives by the sea in South Devon with her husband and two daughters. She studied English and Creative Writing at the University of Warwick and worked in Brand PR for a variety of household brands. After moving to Switzerland in her twenties, she spent every spare moment exploring the mountains and still has a home in the Swiss Alpine town of Crans Montana, the dramatic setting that inspired her novel. Sarah has always been drawn to the dark and creepy – remote spaces and abandoned places – so when she read an article in a local Swiss magazine about the history of sanatoriums in the area, she knew she’d found the spark of the idea for her debut novel, The Sanatorium. Her short fiction has been published in a wide variety of magazines and has been shortlisted for several prizes. You can find Sarah on Twitter @SarahVPearse and Instagram @sarahpearseauthor
The Sanatorium
Published by Penguin Random House Australia – Bantam Press
Released 16th February 2021
February 19, 2021
The Week That Was…
News of the week:
It’s all happening here right now. My daughter is a week away from heading off to university to study a Bachelor of Psychological Science after a gap year of earning money and gaining work/life experience. My youngest son started a new school three weeks after starting a new school – pretty certain we have it right this time. He’s switched back to the private system after two years in state education. All I’ll say is that state schools differ dramatically from town to town and who knew that the state high school in Mount Isa of all places was far superior to what is on offer here in Rockhampton. One week down at his new school, the same one his brother started at this year, and he is much happier. It’s also enormously convenient to have both boys at the same school again. No more multiple drop offs and juggling different drop off and pick up times – a bonus now that I am a single working parent. Winning on all levels, plus, this school is really lovely and I think it’s a great fit for both of the boys.
Friday night football has also kicked off this week. 
I quite like these two photos of my son, despite how grainy they are. In the first, he looks absolutely enraged as he goes in for a tackle and in the second he looks like he’s annihilated every boy between him and the field. Ahhh, good old tackle football. No show without punch…no, really!
And in other news, then there was Facebook…
As a platform, Facebook offers the least engagement for me in terms of my blogging, so while being blocked is annoying and requires a bit of a workaround for me in terms of sharing reviews, etc., I can honestly just let it go. A timely reminder to not put all your eggs into one basket – which I hadn’t done for a long time now anyway. But for the Australian Women Writers Challenge (which I coordinate) it’s a bigger deal. We get a lot of engagement and click throughs from Facebook. I’ve reported it as being wrongly blocked but am honestly not holding my breath. I’ve put in place a couple of work arounds there too but essentially, we might have to go back to relying more on Twitter for getting our articles out and only have Facebook for our review discussion group.
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Joke of the week:
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What I’ve been reading:
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And on that note…
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Until next week… 
February 18, 2021
Book Review: The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
The Four Winds is a deeply moving, powerful story about the strength and resilience of women and the bond between mother and daughter, by the multi-million copy number one bestselling author Kristin Hannah.
She will discover the best of herself in the worst of times . . .
Texas, 1934. Elsa Martinelli had finally found the life she’d yearned for. A family, a home and a livelihood on a farm on the Great Plains. But when drought threatens all she and her community hold dear, Elsa’s world is shattered to the winds.
Fearful of the future, when Elsa wakes to find her husband has fled, she is forced to make the most agonizing decision of her life. Fight for the land she loves or take her beloved children, Loreda and Ant, west to California in search of a better life. Will it be the land of milk and honey? Or will their experience challenge every ounce of strength they possess?
From the overriding love of a mother for her child, the value of female friendship, and the ability to love again – against all odds, Elsa’s incredible journey is a story of survival, hope and what we do for the ones we love.
My Thoughts:The Four Winds is very much a novel of social and political American history. It covers that period in the 20th century known as ‘The Great Depression’, but it focuses in on the environmental disaster that coincided with the economic depression and the huge shift of migration from the agricultural interior to the west coast. I studied a unit back at university (way, way, back) on the social and cultural geography of North America. We touched on all regions as an overview and then needed to select two for our specific analysis. I didn’t actually pick the region that contained the areas in this novel known as ‘The Dust Bowl’, but I was introduced to the history in a brief way during the overview. Even with knowing that this combined economic and environmental disaster had occurred, I honestly had no appreciation of the gravity of it.
This novel is entirely depressing. I’m not going to lie. It’s grim. And it should be, because it’s about a prolonged national disaster of epic proportions. The stock market crash in America at the end of the 1920s which led into the economic depression of the early 1930s, which then coincided with a drought throughout the wheat belt (middle America). Not just any drought, a prolonged, years and years long drought that resulted in an environmental disaster never before seen. Over farming led to the land being stripped and changed as prolonged dry conditions caused seismic shifts in the landscape and wind picking up layers of top soil in unending dust storms that occurred with alarming frequency. This led to a life-threatening wide-spread illness called dust pneumonia, where if it didn’t kill you, it would certainly leave you with severely compromised lungs. People couldn’t work their land, livestock filled with dirt and dropped dead, people started getting sick from all the dust inhalation, banks began to foreclose on mortgages, people started driving or walking to California in search of a better life, work, clean air, a fresh start. Except that there was about a million of them, all in search of the same thing, and they ended up becoming unwanted migrants in their own country, forced to live in squalor in camps, begging for work, starving, diseased, ostracised, and when they did find work, it was at the mercy of big business farmers who capitalised on the fact that they could treat their workers any which way they wanted because there were so many more people just waiting on the road for a vacancy to crop up. Are you depressed yet? I know, what a horrendously grim time, and far more extensively catastrophic than I ever realised. In terms of the history of America’s ‘Great Depression’, turns out I knew far less than I thought I did.
Kristin Hannah weaves all of this history into a novel with perfect ease. She focuses in on one farming family and pretty much sets them on the journey that so many Americans took back then. It’s fraught with danger and disaster but I found her handling of it very grounding. She doesn’t give into melodrama or outlandish plot diversions. In many ways, this novel is more literary than her other works of fiction, a social and political study of this period within America, using two female characters from the one family as the device for communicating true events. I liked the all-encompassing scope of the novel, the whole this happened which led to this which then led to this, and so and so on. The story even explores, in its later sections, the push for unionisation of the picking workers who were being abused by big business farmers. People, who were in such desperate and dire situations, being forced to work for an amount that was far below the cost of even the most basic standard of living and being charged for the tools to do it. I like novels that dig into social and political history and this one certainly dug deep.
My only ‘issue’ with this novel was in the characterisation, specifically, Loreda, the daughter of the story. Kristin Hannah tends to write her teenage daughters as real horror heads, truly nasty little pieces of work, particularly when it comes to their mothers. Loreda was a bit much at times, particularly in the first half of the book where her nastiness was rather repetitive as well as tiresome and unnecessary in terms of telling a good story. This was the only time that the story gave into melodrama and cliché characterisation. Loreda was an entitled brat, brutally judgemental when it came to her selfless and hardworking mother, blinded by her adoration of her useless father. At one point, she even blames her mother for the drought. Her bad behaviour was intentional, often putting others at risk and herself in danger, yet, like so many of these sorts of characters, she manages to never run into trouble, get hurt, or have any consequence whatsoever. Everything bad happens to everyone else, including her own mother and brother, but never her. This type of character is a pet hate of mine, so it’s likely I detested her far more than other readers, but this girl really bothered me to the point where I just started to wish that something bad would happen to her so she’d learn her lesson.
Fans of Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale might just feel like she has reached those heights once again with The Four Winds. Casting my minor issues with the one character aside, this novel really is an excellent read – expansive, grounded in history, and deeply moving. It’s predominantly doom and gloom and the hopeful ending is rather bittersweet, but I think it manages to get away with this because of how insightful and impactful the narrative is all the way through. Readers new to Kristin Hannah and long-term fans will all be more than satisfied with this terrific new release. I anticipate seeing this one on the bestseller lists for most of this year.
Kristin Hannah is a New York Times bestselling author. She is a former lawyer turned writer and is the mother of one son. She and her husband live in the Pacific Northwest near Seattle, and Hawaii. Her first novel published in the UK, Night Road, was one of eight books selected for the UK’s 2011 TV Book Club Summer Read, and her novel The Nightingale was a New York Times number one bestseller, selling almost three million copies worldwide.
The Four Winds
Published by Pan Macmillan Australia
Released 27th January 2021
February 16, 2021
Book Review: The Imitator by Rebecca Starford…
A page-turning World War Two spy thriller, based on true events.
Out of place at boarding school, scholarship girl Evelyn Varley realises that the only way for her to fit in is to be like everyone else. She hides her true self and what she really thinks behind the manners and attitudes of those around her. By the time she graduates from Oxford University in 1939, ambitious and brilliant Evelyn has perfected her performance.
War is looming. Evelyn soon finds herself recruited to MI5, and the elite counterintelligence department of Bennett White, the enigmatic spy-runner. Recognising Evelyn’s mercurial potential, White schools her in observation and subterfuge and assigns her the dangerous task of infiltrating an underground group of Nazi sympathisers working to form an alliance with Germany.
But befriending people to betray them isn’t easy, no matter how dark their intent. Evelyn is drawn deeper into a duplicity of her own making, where truth and lies intertwine, and her increasing distrust of everyone, including herself, begins to test her better judgement. When a close friend becomes dangerously ensnared in her mission, Evelyn’s loyalty is pushed to breaking point, forcing her to make an impossible decision.
A powerfully insightful and luminous portrait of courage and loyalty, and the sacrifices made in their name.
My Thoughts:‘It was during those cold mornings that Evelyn learnt that truth was found at the edges of people…’
I enjoyed this novel far more than I expected, and that’s not at all because my expectations were low, rather, the novel itself was just so much deeper and more insightful on a level I wasn’t anticipating. The era it deals with is at the beginning of WWII, during a phase sometimes referred to as ‘the phony war’. Evelyn is recruited into MI5 to infiltrate an underground movement of Nazi sympathisers. While this novel is on the one hand a suspenseful thriller filled with spies and double crossing, it’s also a deeply affecting character study of a woman caught between lives. I really loved it, the literary aspect gripping me even more than the suspense.
‘Evelyn thought about her own mother standing at the kitchen sink, the slope of her shoulders, that fragile bun. She could see the course of their estrangement like footprints trailing down the hallway and out the front door, but for once it didn’t feel as though she had done something wrong.’
Evelyn is a woman who is no stranger to making herself into someone new for whatever the situation requires. She does this from a young age in boarding school and continues on from there. She is, in essence, the perfect person to become a spy. Evelyn herself is thrilled with the opportunity, feels she is not only doing something exciting as a job but also making a worthwhile contribution to the war effort. But of course, nothing is ever as it seems on the surface, and there is a cost to this type of job, an impact upon her life that she could not possibly have foreseen. The experience of being a spy was different for women, there was a particular pressure to use your ‘feminine charm’ to ingratiate yourself. There was also a particular tendency for women to get thrown under the bus when everything went pear shaped. I appreciated the subtle ways in which this was conveyed throughout the narrative. There was a great deal implied with a minimum degree of obviousness.
‘Truth didn’t matter. These people had come because they knew they would have their insane beliefs confirmed.’
For those who know Evelyn, she is something of an enigma. Considered cold and standoffish, but with an obvious intelligence that makes her appealing. She is also attractive, not beautiful enough to be threatening, but pretty enough to draw interest. I really felt for Evelyn though, out of necessity she kept people at arms-length, but it eventually became par for the course and so normal for her that she was unable to allow people in. The characteristics of being a spy eventually became so ingratiated that they disabled her from being a normal person again long after she had ceased to be a spy. I loved the way this was explored on such a deep and meaningful level, and it was this aspect of the novel overall that appealed to me the most and kept me enthralled. I’ve always loved novels that dive deep into their characters, turning them inside out and exposing their most inner thoughts.
‘If I were to disappear, she thought, the world would continue just as it always has. Nothing would change. I would have never made an imprint. I would never be remembered. But she also knew if she kept living like this she would disappear anyway. Dwindle, reduce, evaporate. She could already feel herself diminishing. It had been gradual, wearing her away like the sea against rock.’
The writing throughout this novel is sublime. Moments of pure poetry with stunning visualisation attached to the descriptions of emotions. While the author is not new to writing, this is her first novel, and as far as first novels go, it’s impressive and also exciting; I look forward to reading further novels by her. The Imitator is recommended to fans of literary historical fiction and lovers of thought provoking and deeply insightful novels.
Thanks is extended to Allen & Unwin for providing me with a copy of The Imitator for review.
About the Author:Rebecca Starford is publishing director of Kill Your Darlings magazine and author of acclaimed memoir Bad Behaviour: A Memoir of Bullying and Boarding School, which is currently in development with Matchbox Pictures for adaptation into a TV series. She lives in Brisbane with her partner and son.
The Imitator
Published by Allen & Unwin
Released 2nd February 2021
February 14, 2021
#TheMoroccanDaughterTour – #BookReview: The Moroccan Daughter by Deborah Rodriguez
Morocco: a captivating country of honour and tradition. And, for these four women, a land of secrets and revelations.
From the twisted alleyways of the ancient medina of Fès to a marriage festival high in the Atlas Mountains, Deborah Rodriguez’s entrancing new bestseller is a modern story of forbidden love set in the sensual landscape of North Africa. Author of The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul and The Zanzibar Wife.
Amina Bennis has come back to her childhood home in Morocco to attend her sister’s wedding. The time has come for her to confront her strict, traditionalist father with the secret she has kept for more than a year – her American husband, Max.
Amina’s best friend, Charlie, and Charlie’s feisty grandmother, Bea, have come along for moral support, staying with Amina and her family in their palatial riad in Fès and enjoying all that the city has to offer. But Charlie is also hiding someone from her past – a mystery man from Casablanca.
And then there’s Samira, the Bennises’ devoted housekeeper for many decades. Hers is the biggest secret of all – one that strikes at the very heart of the family.
As things begin to unravel behind the ancient walls of the medina, the four women are soon caught in a web of lies, clandestine deals and shocking confessions.
My Thoughts:The Moroccan Daughter follows on from Deborah Rodriguez’s previous release, Island on the Edge of the World. It’s not so much a sequel though, so you don’t have to worry about having to read it before you read this one, but more of a continuation of the adventures of two of the key characters, Charlie and Bea. For those who have read Island on the Edge of the World, this one offers some further insight into these characters, but for those who haven’t read it, enough backstory is woven into this one to ensure enjoyment and clarity.
I really like Deborah’s novels. She creates an intriguing blend of adventure, family drama, love and friendship, all set against the most exotic locations – all of which she has visited, providing an authentic replication of her locales onto the page. Her characters are all lively and realistic, with individual personalities sparking off each other just as they do in real life. Her settings are richly detailed, everything from smells to sounds with an infusion of culture woven into the narrative, giving the reader such a vivid sense of place. She hits the right notes all the time and The Moroccan Daughter is no exception to this trademark style of hers.
I found Amina very frustrating at times, as did the other characters, but I think this is an example of how cultural barriers can come into play, particularly within cross-cultural relationships. She frustrated me, yes, but I also understood why she was doing what she was doing and acting the way she was acting. She had indeed put herself into a situation of her own making and I couldn’t help but think that she had been a bit like an ostrich when marrying Max, sticking her head in the sand and thinking she’ll deal with the fall out with her family later. Except, when later arrived, she still wasn’t equipped to deal with it, external circumstances forcing her hand.
I enjoyed the family dynamic that played out within this novel between Amina and her siblings, their loyalty to their father’s happiness and honour, as well as Samira’s place within the household and how it varied between the sibling’s perspectives. She was an interesting character and learning her backstory was fascinating. I liked the friendship between Samira and Bea that blossomed and the scenes where Samira would take Bea out with her were written so well, giving the reader insight into Fès, the daily life and customs, from the perspective of a local and a tourist.
The Moroccan Daughter does offer a lot to the reader, with its four main characters all having their own things going on as well as linking in with each other and a host of secondary characters. To describe the plot would almost seem like too much was going on but I never felt that whilst reading. Instead, everything works well, the characters and their individual stories overlapping as the ending draws closer, resulting in a warm-hearted, entertaining, and insightful novel. This was an entirely enjoyable read and I recommend it highly.
Thanks is extended to Penguin Random House Australia for providing me with a copy of The Moroccan Daughter for review.
About the Author:Deborah Rodriguez is the author of the international bestsellers The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul, Return to the Little Coffee Shop of Kabul, The Zanzibar Wife and Island on the Edge of the World. She has also written two memoirs: The Kabul Beauty School, about her life in Afghanistan, and The House on Carnaval Street, on her experiences following her return to America. She spent five years teaching and later directing the Kabul Beauty School, the first modern beauty academy and training salon in Afghanistan. Deborah also owned the Oasis Salon and the Cabul Coffee House, and is the founder of the non-profit organization Oasis Rescue, which aims to teach women in post-conflict and disaster-stricken areas the art of hairdressing. She currently lives in Mazatlán, Mexico, where she owns Tippy Toes salon and spa.
The Moroccan Daughter
Published by Penguin Random House Australia (Bantam Australia)
Released 2nd February 2021
#TheMoroccanDaughterTour
February 6, 2021
#6degrees of separation: from Redhead by the Side of the Road to Home Stretch…
It’s the first Saturday of the month so that means it’s #6degrees of separation time! This month’s starting book is one I loved, Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler.
You can find the details and rules of the #6degrees meme at booksaremyfavouriteandbest, but in a nutshell, on the first Saturday of every month, everyone has the same starting book and from there, you connect in a variety of ways to other books. Some of the connections made are so impressive, it’s a lot of fun to follow.
Redhead by the Side of the Road was my first Anne Tyler and it was the beginning of my love for her books. From this one I next read The Clock Winder, which I loved even more than Redhead, and from here I bought about half a dozen of her books to have on hand for times when a little ‘comfort reading’ is required. I recently read Vinegar Girl and enjoyed it a lot, although I do see why others have said it isn’t Tyler at her best.
I’ve always liked to have an author whose books you can go to when you need a little comfort from your reading. In my twenties it was Maeve Binchy, and it all began with Circle of Friends. I read all of Maeve’s books in quick succession but in the end, The Glass Lake became my favourite.
In my late thirties I started reading Kristin Hannah, gravitating towards her contemporary titles for that dose of comfort. True Colours is my favourite out of Hannah’s contemporary backlist.
Jockeying with Tyler for top position in the comfort reading of my forties is Graham Norton. His novels have taken me by surprise but his voice as it reaches out of the page is just sensational and I find I am getting a lot of peace and comfort when I slip into one of his books. Home Stretch is such a beautiful novel of family and human connection, the definition of a comfort read.
So there you have it, a themed chain on comfort reading which all started with my Queen of comfort reads, Anne Tyler.
The Week That Was…
Football season has begun and so has the endless driving from one training session to another. Games begin this Friday night, and while I am partial to doing nothing on a Friday night, I far prefer night games to weekend morning/middle of the day games, that’s for sure.
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Joke of the week:
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What I’ve been watching:
Yes! An example of an excellent book to TV adaptation…
No! An example of a really bad book to TV adaptation…
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What I’ve been reading:
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Until next week…
February 4, 2021
Book Review: Shiver by Allie Reynolds
In this propulsive locked-room thriller, a reunion weekend in the French Alps turns deadly when five friends discover someone has deliberately stranded them in a deserted mountaintop resort.
When Milla is invited to a reunion in the tiny resort that saw the peak of her snowboarding career, she drops everything to go. While she would rather forget the events of that winter, the invitation comes from Curtis, the one person she can’t seem to let go.
The five friends haven’t seen each other for ten years, since the disappearance of the beautiful and enigmatic Saskia. But when an icebreaker game turns menacing, they realise they don’t know who has really gathered them there and how far they will go to find the truth. In an isolated lodge high up a mountain, amid a looming snowstorm, the secrets of the past are about to come to light.
Imagine Agatha Christie set in the Alps and you have Shiver, a spectacularly sinister psychological debut.
My Thoughts:‘It’s that time of the year again. The time the glacier gives up bodies. The immense mass of ice up there is a frozen river that flows too slowly for the eye to see. Recent victims brush shoulders with older ones in its glassy depths.’
I was captured by this novel right from the opening passage and I daresay, if I’d been on holidays and not having to get up to go to work the next day, I would have pulled an all-nighter and read from start to finish in one go, no small feat with a 400-page book. As it was, I still raced through it in only two nights, quite a rarity for me during the working week. The story is told in alternate chapters, the present day and then ten years previous, both from Milla’s perspective. In the past sections we are privy to all of the backstory up until the point where a set of tragic events occur that form the focus of the present-day sections. The format makes for a gripping read, short chapters with cliff-hanger endings – the very definition of a page turner. And then there’s the foreshadowing and doubt cast onto the various characters throughout different points in the story. The author has crafted this novel to perfection.
The backdrop for this thrilling story is the world of competitive snowboarding, a sport I knew nothing about prior to reading this book. The author herself is a former pro-snowboarder and this shows throughout the narrative, but only in the sense that you are immersed into the world, not because you are overwhelmed with its details. There is a perfect balance to this achieved by the author which is impressive for a debut about a topic they are no doubt passionate about. There’s always a risk of ‘too much information’ but that’s not the case with this book. I found myself intrigued about this sport, the risks versus rewards for the athletes, and enjoyed spending ‘the season’ with them.
In terms of the crime/suspense/thriller side of the story, you can’t get better than this. Twists and turns, the mind games, everyone doubting each other, everyone with motivation; it was excellent, with perfect pacing all the way through. I’ve already started recommending this one far and wide and I can envisage buying it as a gift for a few of my book loving friends and relatives. This is one that will no doubt pop up as a movie or TV series in the future, the gripping story has that adaptive quality and with the magnificent alpine setting, it would be visually stunning on the screen. I can understand all the hype around this one, it’s well deserved and I am happy to add my review into the mix.
Thanks is extended to Hachette Australia for providing me with a copy of Shiver for review.
About the Author:Allie Reynolds is a former professional freestyle snowboarder who spent five winters in the mountains of France, Switzerland, Austria and Canada. Her short fiction has been published in magazines in the UK, Australia, Sweden and South Africa. Allie swapped her snowboard for a surfboard and now lives by the beach in Queensland. SHIVER is her debut novel.
Shiver
Published by Hachette Australia
Released 27th January 2021
February 3, 2021
Book Review: The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse by Charlie Mackesy
A reminder of what truly matters, as told through the adventures of four beloved friends. Based on Charlie’s daily Instagram.
Discover the very special book that has captured the hearts of millions of readers all over the world.
A book of hope for uncertain times.
Enter the world of Charlie’s four unlikely friends, discover their story and their most important life lessons.
The boy, the mole, the fox and the horse have been shared millions of times online – perhaps you’ve seen them? They’ve also been recreated by children in schools and hung on hospital walls. They sometimes even appear on lamp posts and on cafe and bookshop windows. Perhaps you saw the boy and mole on the Comic Relief T-shirt, Love Wins?
Here, you will find them together in this book of Charlie’s most-loved drawings, adventuring into the Wild and exploring the thoughts and feelings that unite us all.
My Thoughts:I’ve been following the Facebook page of Charlie Mackesy for quite some time now as I particularly like his artwork. The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse puts me in mind of the original Winnie the Pooh works, with its quaint style and words of wisdom. To see the artworks collected into this volume is such a treat and the book itself is presented beautifully, making it a real treasure to keep or give as a gift. After reading it, there are a couple of people that have instantly popped into my mind as those who I want to send a copy to.
There is comforting aspect to this book that lends itself to being gifted, I think. It’s also the sort of book that is suitable for all sorts of readers. You can read it from start to finish, as I did, or you can randomly open it at any page and just dip in and out of it as you wish. Don’t be fooled either into thinking that this is a picture book and therefore just for children; it’s more of a treasury, a volume of wisdom, and while it is suitable for children, it’s also appealing for adults of all ages and stages of life. I just loved this book. I really think it deserves a home on everybody’s shelf.
Artist Charlie Mackesy has been a cartoonist for The Spectator and a book illustrator for Oxford University Press. He has collaborated with Richard Curtis for Comic Relief, and Nelson Mandela on a lithograph project, ‘The Unity Series’. His first exhibition for the boy, the mole, the fox and the horse was in London in November 2018. Charlie lives in South London with his dog.
The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse
Published by Penguin Random House Australia (Ebury Press)
Released 10th October 2019
February 2, 2021
Book Review: The Perfect Guests by Emma Rous
From the author of The Au Pair comes an enthralling time-slip mystery about two women, one house and a lifetime of secrets, perfect for fans of The Guest List and The Family Upstairs.
When Beth was fourteen, she was invited into Raven Hall, a rambling, isolated manor house in the English countryside. The family who lived there were warm and welcoming, and Beth soon became firm friends with their daughter, Nina. At times, Beth even felt like she was truly part of the family . . . But then they asked her to play a very strange game – and nothing was the same again.
Now, after years of abandonment, Raven Hall has been restored to its former glory and is playing host to an evening of murder mystery . . . But why does the tragic past of this imposing house seem to have such a hold on everyone? Is this really just a game, or a murder mystery for real?
The guests are about to find out – with devastating consequences . . .
My Thoughts:I really enjoyed The Au Pair by Emma Rous, so when I saw she had a second book released, I was keen to read it as soon as possible. My expectations were high but they were more than met. The Perfect Guests is a gripping, twisting sort of tale that takes quite a few unexpected turns along the way. Perfectly paced, and perfectly unique – I could barely put it down.
I had a few theories as to what was going on in this novel but I’m pleased to say that I was proven wrong on all counts! I love it when a story catches you so much by surprise – over and over! With this one, it kept up the reveals right to the last sentence. I’d have to say that I am very much a firm fan of Emma Rous now and will forever more read every book she releases. She puts new meaning to the whole concept of ‘family legacy’, that’s for sure! This is a story of obsession and revenge taken to the next level, with the most tragic of consequences.
I enjoyed the mix of characters, and while most of the story seems to play out in the past sections, I still enjoyed the contemporary ‘murder mystery evening’ storyline. As the events became more and more bizarre as the night unfolded, I found that Emma Rous really captured this unsettling atmosphere so well through her character’s reactions. Likewise in the sections that were telling the story of the ‘past tragedy’ and the family history lurking within the walls of the house. The growing sense of unease and confusion experienced by Beth was conveyed with such conviction and I really felt myself mirroring her concerns. That urgency of not knowing what was really going on, of sensing the danger but not fully realising the source. This was sustained throughout the novel in all of its parts, showcasing Emma Rous’s skill as a writer of suspenseful fiction.
The Perfect Guests is the sort of novel that has universal appeal. It crosses genre lines along with timelines, making it an ideal read for book clubs and gift giving, suiting readers of all tastes. I am quite partial to the whole ‘house with a history nestled in an isolated location’, but theme alone can’t sustain a whole novel. I’m pleased to say that The Perfect Guests is a stand out read within this sub-class and I will be recommending it far and wide for a long time to come.
Emma Rous is the USA Today bestselling author of The Au Pair. She grew up in England, Indonesia, Kuwait, Portugal and Fiji, and from a young age she had two ambitions: to write stories, and to look after animals. She studied veterinary medicine and zoology at the University of Cambridge, and worked as a small animal veterinarian for eighteen years before starting to write fiction. Emma lives near Cambridge in England with her husband and three sons, and she now writes full time.
The Perfect Guests
Published by Hachette Australia (Piatkus)
Released 12th January 2021
